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Sports of The Times; The Toy Department Of Life

VINNY TESTAVERDE spoke a simple put penetrating truth yesterday afternoon as the Jets ended practice. At a time when so many of us grapple with the still unfathomable dimensions of Tuesday's tragedy, Testaverde said: ''This is uncharted waters for all of us. We're all taking it day by day and seeing where it takes us.''

As national and local leaders called on football players to play their games, and effectively resume their roles as ''diversions,'' the Jets, led loudly by Testaverde and Curtis Martin and supported eloquently by Coach Herman Edwards, said no.

''The country needs a diversion?'' Edwards said. ''You know what they should do? Go to church. Go pray.''

Yesterday morning, Testaverde, the team's quarterback, decided that the waters would not take him to California, where the Jets were scheduled to play the Oakland Raiders on Sunday. ''I made a decision early this morning that I was not playing this week,'' Testaverde said, ''whether the team was going to California to play a game or not.''

''We're a unified team,'' Testaverde said. ''Not only this team but a lot of teams would have done the same thing.''

Hours later, the National Football League called off Sunday's games. While the owners cited safety and the need to show respect for the victims, all evidence suggests the players, specifically the Jets and the Giants, forced the league to shut down or risk the embarrassment of a wildcat strike by the New York teams.

Testaverde, Martin and Edwards grew quite a bit in my eyes on Thursday even though my own viewpoint was different. I felt the teams should play on Sunday, though my decision was made as a journalist.

As journalists, we record the first drafts of history; this is our fate, this is our curse, this is our passion. While others run from the flame, we move closer, not out of a sense of courage necessarily, but out of a sense of loyalty to the story that often overrides good judgment.

On Tuesday morning at 9:30 I found myself on Pearl Street in the shadow of billowing smoke, staring with my mouth open at a huge hole in the side of a tower, orange flames shooting out of its side. Nothing seemed more irrelevant than games.

Kevin Mawae, the Jets' union representative, was on a conference call for two hours Wednesday night. He said a majority favored cancellation.

''Guys were apprehensive about going on the trip this weekend,'' he said. ''Not only travel and hotel stays, but in the stadiums. It only takes one bomb threat for them to have to evacuate a 60,000-seat stadium.''

Edwards took pains to point out the place of sports in the grand scheme of things, saying: ''In life, sports is in the toy department. Sports is the toy store of life.''

Maybe so, but it's a multibillion-dollar toy department. And suggesting that these sporting events are just games is akin to suggesting that the World Trade Center towers were merely two tall buildings. They were landmarks and markers of power and commerce. These games, which draw millions of fans in person and via television each weekend, have become, for better or for worse, markers of American vitality and vibrancy -- symbols of a nation previously secure and oblivious to danger. But if, as Edwards says, these sporting events are merely byproducts of a toy department, let it remain so, now and forever.

Effective immediately: No more war analogies from coaches or players. No more of this nonsense about players preparing for battle, or talk about the coach being a commander or some fake general. No more silly displays of jets roaring over stadiums in a contrived connection between football and the military and war.